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...luckily it's a kind of small project and all. But I'm not quite sure how to work around one existing 'feature' without having to tear out a lot more than I really want to...
The existing setup:
The little black freezer seemed like a neat idea to begin with, but functionally... the kitchen 'needs' the extra pantry/storage space a whole lot more than it does a second small freezer, at least for our family. As an added bonus, I defrosted and cleaned it out while the wife is away visiting family, and now the dang thing won't 'freeze' anymore. Beautiful
The idea I had in mind is to pull the freezer, and remove that side cabinet. After that, build a new lower cabinet to span the width and make use of roll-out storage.
The problem is that while it appears that the lower cabinet is simply a separate melamine box (with red-oak edging) that is attached with screws to the cabinets above it and the one down below and to the side...
(not sure if you can see the visible line between the two cabinet boxes; the previous owner was a professional remodeler and did a very nice & tight job on this - even cut the edging so it looks like a tongue-n-groove joint in red oak - until you open the cabinet and see the white melamine interior)
The real pickle is this:
I'm not sure if he just glued on an entire sheet of thin red oak veneer or what? Like I said, if I didn't 'know' it was melamine on the inside, I'd swear it was one solid board of red oak - the edging is near perfect. And if the lower cabinet is glued to that piece of veneer which is also glued to the upper cabinet... getting them apart without royally screwing it up, much less making it look decent afterwards is sounding less and less likely.
The more I look at it and think it through, I'm starting to wonder if I may be time/money/frustration ahead to just rip out both the upper and lower cabinets and make one new pantry rather than a separate lower section?
Thoughts?
The existing setup:
The little black freezer seemed like a neat idea to begin with, but functionally... the kitchen 'needs' the extra pantry/storage space a whole lot more than it does a second small freezer, at least for our family. As an added bonus, I defrosted and cleaned it out while the wife is away visiting family, and now the dang thing won't 'freeze' anymore. Beautiful
The idea I had in mind is to pull the freezer, and remove that side cabinet. After that, build a new lower cabinet to span the width and make use of roll-out storage.
The problem is that while it appears that the lower cabinet is simply a separate melamine box (with red-oak edging) that is attached with screws to the cabinets above it and the one down below and to the side...
(not sure if you can see the visible line between the two cabinet boxes; the previous owner was a professional remodeler and did a very nice & tight job on this - even cut the edging so it looks like a tongue-n-groove joint in red oak - until you open the cabinet and see the white melamine interior)
The real pickle is this:
I'm not sure if he just glued on an entire sheet of thin red oak veneer or what? Like I said, if I didn't 'know' it was melamine on the inside, I'd swear it was one solid board of red oak - the edging is near perfect. And if the lower cabinet is glued to that piece of veneer which is also glued to the upper cabinet... getting them apart without royally screwing it up, much less making it look decent afterwards is sounding less and less likely.
The more I look at it and think it through, I'm starting to wonder if I may be time/money/frustration ahead to just rip out both the upper and lower cabinets and make one new pantry rather than a separate lower section?
Thoughts?
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